Paul Squires on security and related topics

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What’s interesting to me about this ongoing story (how many years is this now?!) is the lack of detail and information from a security perspective and even the basics about what has been alleged.

From following the story I’m still not entirely sure what is meant by “phone”; does it refer to a handset itself, or a telecoms network? I’m also not sure what is meant by “hacking” in this case although I’m assuming it’s not someone jailbreaking an iPhone…

Either way this is less of an individual privacy story and more one related to criminal misuse of computer systems. Where are the network operators involved in all this? Shouldn’t they be the ones calling for an investigation, or at the very least demonstrating that the networks they run are not so easy to “hack”?

The media coverage of this whole “event” is pathetic. A sample line from the BBC Q&A (linked to from the above story) is –

Who do we know was hacked?

I’d go so far as to say that, with regards to this, nobody has been hacked, unless there are some related battery and ABA charges related to this.

What’s missing is clear and concise information about what has happened. This affects all of us – individuals and businesses – who use commercial telecoms networks, not just celebrities and politicians (although I’d include them in the former category nowadays). At the very least there’s a fantastic upsell opportunity for someone…

In these days when Google and Facebook are slammed for not providing satisfactory privacy controls (even though users willingly share information on those services) I find it disgusting to see the people responsible for controlling these systems are not being questioned.

Update (27 Jan 2010 @18:47): Some more information from The Register. The comments on this story indicate that there’s not really “hacking” in any true sense, but taking advantage of the ability to access voicemail from other ‘phones, along with easily guessable PINs. Perhaps there’s an easy lesson to be learnt here.